# An Hero

An Hero is 4chan slang for suicide, born from a grammatically broken comment left on the 2006 MySpace memorial page of Mitchell Henderson. Trolls seized on the misspelled tribute, fabricated a story that Mitchell killed himself over a lost iPod, and turned the phrase into a running joke used to tell people to kill themselves on /b/.

## Overview
'An hero' is a grammatically wrong phrase used on 4chan and other imageboards as a synonym for suicide, or as a taunt telling someone to kill themselves[1]. The most common usage on the /b/ board treats the term as a verb, as in 'go an hero,' aimed at posts considered stupid or spammy[2].

The phrase is inseparable from the 2006 death of Mitchell Henderson, whose MySpace memorial page carried a misspelled tribute that trolls kept alive for years afterward[3]. The troll campaign around Henderson was documented by the mainstream press as an example of 4chan harassment aimed at a grieving family[1].

## How It Spread
On September 2nd, 2006, a user named '4chananonymous' submitted a definition for the term to Urban Dictionary, listing meanings that ranged from 'committing suicide over something really stupid' to a general taunt aimed at bad posts[2]. Trolls also called Mitchell's parents by phone in the year and a half after his death, and some visited his grave to place iPods and photos tied to the meme[1].

In August 2008, the New York Times Magazine published Mattathias Schwartz's feature 'The Trolls Among Us,' which used the Henderson case as its opening example of organized 4chan cruelty aimed at grieving families[1].

On April 21st, 2011, Uncyclopedia posted a satirical 'How To: Become An Hero' guide, extending the joke into a full parody article[4]. The phrase stayed in use as 4chan slang past that point[3].

## How to Use
The term is typically deployed as a verb on 4chan, most often as the imperative 'go an hero' thrown at a bad post[2]. Because the grammatical error is the whole point, users deliberately keep the wrong article ('an' before a consonant), and correcting it back to 'a hero' defeats the joke[3].

## Frequently Asked Questions
### What is An Hero?
'An hero' is 4chan slang for suicide, or a taunt telling someone to kill themselves, taken from a grammatically wrong comment left on a 2006 MySpace memorial[1].

### Where did An Hero come from?
The phrase came from a comment on the MySpace memorial page of Mitchell Henderson, who died by suicide on April 20th, 2006[1].

### What does An Hero mean?
It refers to committing suicide, often over something trivial, or is thrown at bad posts on 4chan as an insult telling the poster to kill themselves[2].

### How do you use An Hero?
The term is typically used as a verb on /b/, as in 'go an hero,' aimed at posts considered stupid or spammy[2].

### Is An Hero still popular?
The phrase stayed in use as 4chan slang for years after its 2006 origin and appeared in a 2011 Uncyclopedia parody guide[4].

## References
1. [https://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/magazine/03trolls-t.html](<https://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/magazine/03trolls-t.html>)
2. [https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=An%20Hero](<https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=An%20Hero>)
3. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/an-hero](<https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/an-hero>)
4. [https://en.uncyclopedia.co/wiki/HowTo:Become_An_Hero](<https://en.uncyclopedia.co/wiki/HowTo:Become_An_Hero>)

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Source: https://meme.com/memes/an-hero
Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library